Abstract
Micro Hydro Power Plants (MHPP) constitute an effective, environmentally-friendly solution to deal with energy poverty in rural isolated areas, being the most extended renewable technology in this field. Nevertheless, the context of poverty and lack of qualified manpower usually lead to a poor usage of the resources, due to the use of thumb rules and user experience to design the layout of the plants, which conditions the performance. For this reason, the development of robust and efficient optimization strategies are particularly relevant in this field. This paper proposes a Genetic Algorithm (GA) to address the problem of finding the optimal layout for an MHPP based on real scenario data, obtained by means of a set of experimental topographic measurements. With this end in view, a model of the plant is first developed, in terms of which the optimization problem is formulated with the constraints of minimal generated power and maximum use of flow, together with the practical feasibility of the layout to the measured terrain. The problem is formulated in both single-objective (minimization of the cost) and multi-objective (minimization of the cost and maximization of the generated power) modes, the Pareto dominance being studied in this last case. The algorithm is first applied to an example scenario to illustrate its performance and compared with a reference Branch and Bound Algorithm (BBA) linear approach, reaching reductions of more than 70% in the cost of the MHPP. Finally, it is also applied to a real set of geographical data to validate its robustness against irregular, poorly sampled domains.
Highlights
The increasing rate of energy demand around the world represents one of the biggest challenges that humanity has to face in the future [1]
Note that this formulation matches the one proposed in [29], where the same problem is solved by using Branch and Bound Algorithm (BBA)-based methods, and the performance of this approach can be evaluated by comparing the results
The Genetic Algorithm (GA) approach is capable of addressing a more complex and realistic problem, where the penstock diameter is considered as a design variable
Summary
The increasing rate of energy demand around the world represents one of the biggest challenges that humanity has to face in the future [1]. World Data Bank [2], approximately 1.1 billion people lacked access to electricity in 2014, representing. While urban areas tend to be more electrified, rural areas are the most affected by the lack of access to electricity. The population without electricity in these areas represents 27% of the total, in comparison with the 4% of urban populations with the same problem. These statistics are more critical in developing countries. The expansion of electricity supply represents an area of interest in these countries [3], which tend to include rural electrification programs in order to improve life quality of the rural population
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